Tonight while shopping for shoes and a cot for my 10 yr old daughter she announced that she wants to start wearing boys clothes and be referred to as Matthew or Matt.

(I meant shoes and a coat)Without missing a beat, I said “Ok let’s go look at the coats in the Young Men’s section.” While looking at the selection and trying on a few coats we talked and I asked her why she wanted to make this change. “Some kids at school ask me if I am a boy or a girl. I just don’t want to deal with it anymore.” She continued to talk about how she had been thinking about this for a while. She hadn’t told anyone about it. She expressed anxiety about telling her dad. She wanted me to tell her siblings as soon as we returned to the house. “Well, let’s think about this a bit. You just told me 15 minutes ago. I think you and I should talk about it some more.” I explained that making a choice like that, whether temporary or permanent, is a big adjustment for the people around her. It’s one thing to change the kind of clothes you wear. It’s another thing entirely to ask people to refer to you by a different name. I encouraged her to think about it. I asked her to write down why she wants to change. What has prompted this. How long she has felt this way, and what worries her about making these changes. She cried about telling her dad. (We have been divorced most of her life)I think that since she finally revealed this to me, now she just wants to “make it so”. I am inclined to caution her and make her think it through a bit more. If she is having trouble with 5th grade classmates asking her is she is a boy or a girl, how will they react when she announces she wants to be called Matthew?What would you do? via /r/Parenting http://ift.tt/2zOBr42